


Team Sport

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-11
Updated: 2013-04-11
Packaged: 2017-12-08 05:20:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/757518
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Basketball has always been a thread in Nino and Aiba's relationship.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Team Sport

**Author's Note:**

> Written for my rainbowfilling bingo card. Prompt was (what else?) "basketball". Can also be found [here](http://taykash.livejournal.com/10276.html).

When Nino met Aiba in 1996, Aiba was a tall, skinny, absolutely clueless teenager holding a basketball. 

“Baseball is better,” Nino had said snidely to him, the first two in Rehearsal Room A, early for their first dance practice of the week.

“I like baseball a lot too,” Aiba replied, his hair falling into his eyes, “but I want to play basketball with SMAP. Do you think they’ll play with me if I ask them?” 

“Yeah, I’m sure our senpai will take time out of their schedules to play basketball with some random Junior,” Nino rolled his eyes and turned his attention back to his Game Boy.

“They look like nice guys, they probably would,” Aiba said, but Nino had already begun hacking down fantasy monsters.

\---

The night Arashi debuted in Hawaii in 1999, Nino found Aiba dribbling a ball on a lonely basketball court.

“You don’t really want to be here, do you?” Aiba had asked him, his eyes taking up half his face. It hurt Nino to see him look so lost, and even though Aiba was technically older than him, Nino wanted to make him feel better.

But Aiba was his closest friend, and he would be able to tell immediately if Nino was lying.

“No,” Nino said, shoving his hands in his pockets. “No, I don’t.”

“I think Jun-chan and I are the only ones that do,” Aiba said, still slowing throwing the ball against the blacktop. “We’re not going to be able to make it this way.”

“It’ll be fine,” Nino said, kicking the ground with the scuffed toe of his sneaker. “We’ll be fine.”

\---

Johnny’s Sports Day 2003 found them both on the Red Team, kicking back in the dugout as they watched their team play against other members of the company.

“We should do a basketball tournament one day,” Aiba said, tossing his bottle of water from hand to hand. “Five on five, you know? It could be like, Arashi versus TOKIO…”

Nino snorted, adjusting his cap. “Us against TOKIO? In _basketball_? We’ve already lost. They’re all eight feet tall and we have Sho-chan on our team.”

“Maybe we could trade him out for Higashiyama-san, just for fun,” Aiba laughed, and the crack of the ball against the bat coincided with the moment Nino looked at him and felt his heart hit a home run.

\---

In 2006, Nino was miserable in the middle of the desert in fucking _California_ of all places. It was hot and the staff kept accidentally leaving him behind on set until it was pitch black and he could hear the howls of coyotes. If anything, he was now damn sure that debuting in Arashi turned out to be the right thing rather than film school in America.

It was hot and sticky, and he took quite a few showers to try and get the grime off, but he could swear there was still dust beneath his fingernails and in his hair no matter how much he lathered and scrubbed. 

But every night, there was an email from Aiba. It was never too long, and usually nonsensical, but it was a taste of home that Nino would never admit to appreciating wholeheartedly. 

‘Do you remember,’ that night’s e-mail started, ‘the day you came over when we were still in school and I made you play basketball at the nearby park? You didn’t want to, because it was hot and you had a new game, but I insisted. That was the day I tripped and scraped my arm on the blacktop. You got me home super fast, Nino, and I knew you wanted to say that you told me so but you didn’t.’

Nino remembered the sun shining too bright for his tastes. He and Aiba should have switched birthdays; Nino was much more of a winter person, preferring the cozy indoors and warm clothing. Aiba should be the June baby, thriving as he did in sunlight and skin tanned by too much outdoor exertion.

The sun had been high in the sky and strong, pounding on Nino’s shoulders. They were both sweaty and reeked only the way teenaged boys can, but Aiba wouldn’t budge on his desire to play. But then he had tripped, and Nino saw the stream of blood shining in the light, and he’s not sure how he managed it but he had yanked Aiba up and hauled him home before he even realized what was going on.

“I remember,” Nino said out loud in his empty hotel room, before continuing the rest of the email.

‘It wasn’t the first time that I knew you cared. I mean, we’re best friends, right? Always have been. But you know, Nino, I think that was the first day I realized you loved me.’

The record inside Nino’s head screeched to a halt. The room was silent, too silent, his thundering heartbeat echoing off the walls and out of the hotel and Nino was just waiting for the San Andreas Fault to move in time with it.

‘I didn’t say anything because you didn’t say anything. I think I knew it before you did. But anyway, I just wanted you to know that your being gone is I guess how my fall was for you.

I can’t stand it.’

Aiba had signed off with a little icon of a basketball.

\---

In 2009, after their first 5x10 shows at Kokuritsu, Nino doesn’t find himself at an opening night celebration with the staff. He finds himself being pushed backwards into Aiba’s apartment with Aiba’s tongue in his mouth.

They were both riding high from the adrenaline at the concert, their dried sweat mixing on their skin as they clutched at each other. It had taken all they had not to take each other in their manager’s car on the way over, but Aiba hadn’t been able to resist and had massaged Nino through his pants until he was barely able to walk into the building when the car had stopped.

But now Nino was unbuttoning Aiba’s pants as they stumbled through the apartment in the direction of the bathroom. Nino didn’t care that Aiba’s being rough, enjoying the bruises he knew he was going to have on his torso from where Aiba was squeezing him close.

It’s good that Aiba had such a strong hold on him, because he hit something with the back of his foot and almost fell to the ground.

“Sorry, sorry!” Aiba laughed, yanking Nino back up to him. “I guess I didn’t put my basketball away last time.”

“You and your fucking basketball,” Nino growled, and bit Aiba’s lip hard enough to bleed.

\---

In 2012, Nino just watches Aiba as he tries memorizing his lines sitting at the kitchen table. His eyebrows are furrowed and Nino watches him mouth the words and wonders if he’s reading a scene with O-Matsu. Nino knows that working with Matsuko Deluxe is fun, but her poison tongue comes out at the first sign of an NG. It hasn’t been stressing Aiba out, exactly, but he’s taking more time to learn his lines than he did with any of his other dramas.

“Hey.” Nino throws the basketball at Aiba without any warning, and it’s only through Aiba’s quick reflexes that the ball doesn’t hit him in the face. “Let’s play.”

“What? Nino, I’m trying to work here,” Aiba says, frowning. He keeps the ball, though, running one hand over its surface smoothed by age.

“You’ve been working too much lately and I feel unloved, so let’s go play,” Nino says with a straight face.

Aiba sighs, glancing back from his script to Nino to the ball. Nino wasn’t a big fan of basketball, but his relationship with Aiba has always been intertwined with the sport, and for that he has a soft spot for it.

“Okay,” Aiba says, standing up from the table, “let’s go play.”

Nino waits until Aiba moves closer to him before taking his hand. “You and your basketball,” Nino says with a sigh, then kisses Aiba’s bright smile.


End file.
